An anti-war, anti-neo-conservative blog to counter the lies of those who wish to condemn us to perpetual conflict. All this, plus horse-racing, football, books, films, television, and plenty of other topics too....
My new book 'Stranger than Fiction', a biography of Edgar Wallace, is available here:
http://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/index.php/biography-books/stranger-than-fiction-25294.html and here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranger-than-Fiction-Wallace-Created/dp/0752498827

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Bobby

Forty years ago tonight, Robert Kennedy was assassinated.

Would he have been a great, progressive President who acted in the interests of the majority of Americans and not just the big corporations and the rich? Or would he have proved a huge let-down?

Of course, we'll never know. John Pilger, who travelled around with Kennedy during his ill-fated Presidential campaign and was actually present in the hotel when Kennedy was shot, puts the case for the prosecution here. If you'd like an alternative, pro-Kennedy view, then Martin Meenagh, who knows more about American political history than any person I have ever met in my life, is your man.

While we'll never know what kind of President Bobby Kennedy would have become, we do know one thing. That Kennedy was one of the most eloquent politicians who ever lived. Listen below to the speech he gave in Indianopolis in April 1968, when he announced to a crowd of African-Americans the tragic news that Martin Luther King had been assassinated. Can you imagine George W. Bush or indeed any contemporary US politician quoting Aeschylus?

And above you can watch the end of the 2006 film Bobby, which includes Kennedy's very moving 'mindless menace of violence' speech.

"What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another".

Forty years on the need for "love, wisdom and compassion" is greater than ever, not just in the United States but across the whole world.

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

John pilger went with him around America, and the picture he gives about him is not so bright.RK was talking in white areas about their interests, and in mixed areas in their tonge. a lip service shouldn't fool us any longer.

I've been browsing through news sites today, and I've seen no mention of the anniversary of Kennedy's assassination. Perhaps it is being crowded out by news of Obama's victory, or Hillary's conniving for VP.

Buy Stranger than Fiction here!

Twitter Updates 2.2: FeedWitter

About Me

I am a journalist, writer & broadcaster, based in the U.K. I am a regular pundit on foreign/current affairs on RT , Voice of Russia and the BBC.
I am the author of 'Stranger than Fiction', a new biography of Edgar Wallace, which is available here http://goo.gl/o2cZze
I am a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines in UK & overseas including The Guardian, The Week, Morning Star, Daily & Sunday Express, The Mail on Sunday & The Spectator.
My work has also appeared in The Fleet Street Letter, The Huffington Post, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Australian and in publications as diverse as The American Conservative, Pravda, Woman's Weekly & the Racing Post.
I am strongly opposed to the neo-conservative war agenda -and believe in the urgent necessity of a left-right anti-war coalition.
On domestic issues I support re-nationalisation of the railways and public utilities (I am co-founder of The Campaign for Public Ownership), a new top rate of tax on the very wealthy, free care for the elderly, a free National Health Service including the restoration of NHS dentistry, and protection of the Green Belt and the countryside.
FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER @NEILCLARK66